TCS bags Banker Technology Award, CDS support mandate

Chennai: After the successful integration of its existing technologies at the Canadian Depository for Securities (CDS), Asia's largest software company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been given the mandate to provide support and maintain the CDSX system for five years.

CDS handles nearly 57 million securities trades a year, holds around $2 trillion on deposit and settles anything between $100-200 billion a day. And in 2001, CDS decided to integrate the various technologies and also to eliminate the slower batch-based processing required by its old system. This was an initiative to realise a single securities depository, clearing and settlement platform for the Canadian capital markets.

TCS vice-president and head of delivery (Chennai) Ravi Shah says the project involved integration of three distinct platforms involving over a dozen technologies. The CDSX project has now got TCS the Banker Technology Award 2003 under the Stock Exchange category.

Commenting on TCS' solution to CDS The Bankers magazine said: "CDSX has given the Canadian capital markets a T+1 settlement solution that the US has yet to achieve. Not only this but it has been achieved at the cost of $50 million, a quarter of the cost of similar projects elsewhere; it was also delivered on time in a highly complex environment and now offers Canada easy transition into a T+1 environment."